Ah, well i’ve been dying for a good beef stew, so I’ll give it a try.
I can always decide when it’s done if it needs to be thicker or not.
thanks.
Yes, please from me, too. This sounds exactly like a recipe that we just loved, but lost it. The combination sounds kind of weird, but it is delicious.
Fiesta Chicken
Place 3 or 4 boneless chicken breasts in pot
Sprinkle with taco seasoning
Pour an entire jar of salsa on top
Cook till chicken is tender, serve with tortillas & rice or beans.
I did find that this is NOT a recipe you can put on before work and come home to 8 hours later, thats way too long. With no liquid other than the salsa this one can only cook for 3 or 4 hours max.
Well, it can be eaten that way, yes. 
Oh yeah, and I’ll look for that cookbook when I get home. I think I know where it its.
buns…
As a matter of happenstance, I just finished preparing a crock pot meal for tomorrow night. This particular recipe requires some preparation the night before, but the results are close to orgasmic, IMO.
Ingredients:
1.5-2 pounds stew beef
2 tbsp flour
pepper to taste
cooking oil (I use olive, but any vegetable oil will do)
2 small onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup red wine
4-5 potatoes, peeled and diced
3-4 carrots, sliced
1-2 turnips, diced
water
2-3 beef bouillion cubes
salt and pepper to taste
bay leaf
The night before you plan to serve:
Mix together the pepper and flour, then mix with the beef cubes to coat. Heat the oil to medium-high in a heavy (preferably cast-iron) skillet, and brown the beef cubes in batches. (The edges of the beef should be brown-black, but the cubes should not be cooked all the way through.) Put the browned beef cubes in a bowl.
After the beef is browned, add additional oil to the same skillet, and cook the onions over medium heat for about five minutes, until translucent and limp. Add the crushed garlic, and saute the onions and garlic for about five more minutes, until the onions start to turn brown and carmelize. Put the onions and garlic in the same bowl as the beef, then add the red wine to the skillet, and simmer for a few minutes while scraping the pan to get up all the beef, flour, and carmelized onion bits. Pour the wine and other contents of the skillet into the bowl with the meat and onions, and let cool to room temperature.
Put the potatoes, carrots, and turnips in a large plastic bag. Pour in the beef and onion mixture (after it is cooled off enough so that it doesn’t melt the plastic bag!), and seal the bag tight. If you are not using a “freezer” bag, put that bag into another bag, and seal it tightly. Then put the bag in the freezer overnight.
The next morning, set up the crock pot to cook on low (if you have a timer, set the start time for 6-8 hours before the time you plan to serve the stew), peel the plastic bags off the stew, and put the frozen block in the crock pot with the meat on top. Add a couple of cups of water, and leave for the day.
Well, the cookbook isn’t with all the others so I don’t know where it would be. I wonder if we lent it to someone…
so do I need to brown the beef or chicken at all before cooking or does it all go in raw?
giving this a shot as we speak…well tomorrow I will anyway
I’m against the kind of broth you can sell in the store since virtually all of it contains MSG and preservatives. So instead, I use my crockpot to make home made chicken stock (or broth).
Bits of chicken, preferrably with the bones
Celery with the leaves, roughly chopped
Carrots, roughly chopped
As much onion as you can stand! roughly chopped
Crushed garlic
bay leaf(ves)
cumin
salt
pepper
parsley (if desired)
Cook for 6-8 hours on low.
Remove and discard all ingredients, leaving only broth. You can choose to skim the fat off the top if you like. Strain the broth through a paper towel if you don’t have cheesecloth, or a similar type of small holed strainer. You can put the broth in a freezer/gallon bag and store it in the freezer for quite a while. Take it out when needed and add fresh veggies and meat after it’s thawed, and viola. One hundred percent home made from scratch.
I’ve adapted my potroast recipe to the slowcooker. It’s pretty good (better than stovetop, not as good as overnight-in-the-oven). I’ve got a giant cooker, so I’m not going to give amounts - put in as much as seems good to you. This is a very forgiving recipe; don’t be afraid to experiment.
Put the potroast on the bottom (whatever cut you prefer). This is opposite of what my cooker instructions say, but I find that the meat comes out very bland if you put it on top where it’s not sitting in the liquid. I cook mine long enough that the veggies are thoroughly cooked anyway, so that’s not a problem. If you’re trying to rush it, you might need to put the veggies on bottom. You can brown it first if you want; mine are usually still semi-frozen so I don’t bother; it comes out fairly brownish anyway.
Throw in some garlic - whole, crushed, minced, whatever.
Add potatoes, carrots, lots of onion. Small red potatoes or peeled and quartered general-purpose potatoes - either kind works fine. Either baby carrots, or peeled carrots cut into chunks (around 2"). Any kind of onion, just peel and cut into eighths.
Add whatever else strikes your fancy. Sometimes I mince celery and add with the garlic. Bell pepper or mushrooms added with the veggies can be good.
For liquid, use some strong, cold coffee. (This is the secret ingredient for pot roast). I usually add a little soy sauce and sometimes browning liquid (Kitchen Bouquet[sup]TM[/sup]). Sometimes I add some wine as well. Or you can use stock/bouillion, water, whatever - it’s all good. Remember that you don’t need very much liquid in a crockpot recipe - you’ll end up with much more liquid than you started with.
Herbs and spices are good - add some black pepper and a bayleaf, maybe some thyme or parsley, a little oregano’s not bad. If you haven’t used soy sauce, browning liquid, bouillion, or similar, you probably should add some salt.
When it’s done, pull out the meat & veg. You can strain the juice if you like; you’ll definitely need to degrease it. Serve the stock for gravy as is or with thickening, or use it to make regular gravy (cook the fat with flour and then add juices plus more liquid).
This is an all-day recipe, I’m talking at least ten hours, preferably 12. You can put it all together the night before and leave it in the frig. Just remember to get it out and plug it in the next morning! (Best with whole red potatoes so you don’t have to worry about the potatoes turning brown.)
I also make a roast chicken pretty much the same way, except I use chicken stock and/or white wine for the liquid. Cut the veggies smaller, and use maybe some parsley, sage and rosemary for seasoning.
I’m going to have to try some of the other recipes here; I’d love to use my crockpot more!
I like to do that, too. :rolleyes:
Crock Pot Chicken Cordon Bleu
Five boneless, skinless chicken thighs (you can use breast halves if you prefer white meat)
Five slices thick sliced deli ham
Five slices deli swiss cheese
One can cream of chicken soup
One can cream of mushroom soup
Pound boneless chicken pieces nice and flat; put a slice of ham and a slice of cheese on each. Roll and secure with toothpicks. Arrange in slow cooker in a pyramid shape. Pour soup over top. Cook on low about five hours.
Crock Pot Deviled Chicken
1 and 1/2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken
6 Tbsp. butter
6 Tbsp. spicy brown mustard
3/4 C. sugar or 18 pkts. Splenda
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 C brown rice
1-2 C chicken broth
Put chicken, butter, mustard, sweetener and seasonings in slow cooker; cook on low about 6 hours. Add brown rice and 1 C. chicken broth, continue cooking until rice is tender, adding more broth as needed.
Good news, I was able to remember the name of the recipe and Google found it on another messageboard.
Or if you’re using a crockpot, just dump everything in and let it simmer. I made mine with chili beans instead of the pink beans for some extra kick.
Thanks, Lute! I appreciate the time & trouble. Yum.
I tend to make crock pot recipes that will literally feed us for a week, hence the size of these portions.
Meaty and Cheesey Potatoes:
About 2-3 pounds of red potatoes, sliced
1 package of cream cheese, cut into cubes
1 small package of velveeta cheese
1 lb of hamburger (browned and drained)
1 can of cream of mushroom soup (mixed with 1 C water
Layer 1/2 the potatoes, 1/2 the hamburger, 1/2 the cheese, and then add the other 1/2 of the potatoes, meat, and cheese. Pour soup mix over it all. Set on Med for 6 hours.
My Wacky Meat Concoction
1 (or 2) round steaks, seasoned to taste
2 cans of black beans (Drained)
2 cans of kidney beans (drained)
1 can of corn
1/2 jar cactus (optional)
6-8 ounces of green salsa
Mix it all together, cook on low for 8 hours, serve with rice (or by itself)
If you’re using fatty meats, it tends to be best if you brown and drain them.
With chicken or lean meats, it really depends on what you prefer. I don’t think I can notice a taste difference, generally.
It looks like I’m well covered for the winter now. Thanks, everyone.
well inspired by this thread and by ** PooterMommy’s ** recipie I mixed up the following not so standard beef stuff (its pretty much stew)
5 taters, red and white as in a few of each
2 carrots, one huge one small
2 celery stalks
one big ass sweet onion, half went into the stew the other half sat on top all day then got scraped off…I just didnt have a use for it so I figured the extra kick would help.
one orange bell pepper
bout a pound of stew beef.
salt, to taste I pretty much eyeballed it.
fresh ground pepper
1-2 table spoons of crushed red pepper (I mean the kind of spoon you eat with, not sure how close that is to the measuring kind)
when I thought I was going to brown the meat I poured some of my homemade chili oil over it, about 1/2 cup, (oilive oil in a large wine bottle+ 1/2 cup or more of crushed red peppers, let it sit for a week or so and enjoy)
also most of a negra modelo, a dark beer from corona.
and one can of low sodium v8, the little cans (this smelled so damn good I am going to try it with more next time)
chopped the veggies added the beer and v8 and let sit over night, the beef sat in the oil over night both in the fridge.
veggies in the pot, then meat, then mushrooms/orange pepper/sweet onion on top
after 6 hours called roommate who is not a cook, he scoops out hte extra onion and says taters are still pretty raw so I have him turn it to high, arrive home after 8 hours, soup is on.
the veggies and meat taste pretty much like beef stew should taste but the broth is wonderfully spicy
oh yeah almost forgot, about 1 bulb of garlic total amount was around 1/2 gallon probably a bit less.
Tried it the other day. Excellent.
I adapted it a little though.
-
I didn’t put any celery in because I forgot to get some.
-
I threw in two whole cloves of garlic.
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I did end up putting about a tbs. of flour mixed up in a little water to thicken the gravy a bit.
Glazed Onions for your freezer
When onions get unusually cheap, buy a 5-pound bag.
Slice and quarter (or vice-versa) the onions.
Put one stick (1/4 pound) of butter or margarine in first, then dump in all the cut-up onions.
Cook low, covered, for several hours, stirring every hour or so.
When they reach a mahogany brown and an ecstatic aroma, they’re done.
After some cooling, spoon the onions into qt. freezer bags, so that, when laid flat, they’re about 1/2 inch thick. Put the qt. bags into a gallon bag or plastic box.
Freeze them, and you’ll be able to break off a chunk to throw into a dish when you need it. Keep in mind, you started out with 5 lbs., so it’s concentrated. You won’t need much.